P. T. Barnum

And cold reading is what the people who read poems and tell fortunes, that's what they're doing.

And it all comes back to P.T. Barnum, the original Carney.

He didn't know anything about the people he was reading, but he knew people.

What he would do is based on a very small subset of information, tired looking man, wedding ring, briefcase, he would surmise some general probabilities and then throw multiple out at the same time.